Michel Cardin : Chansons D’Acadie Vol2 for voice and guitar or Theorbo: Bergmann

Michel Cardin

Bergmann Edition : 32 pages score only

This book follows on from my previous review as it has the remaining 10 pieces that Cardin arranged in this manner, from the full batch of about 600 French and Acadian songs collected in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia by archivists Anselme Chiasson and Daniel Boudreau between 1942 and 1993.Their publication had only the melody and the words but no accompaniment, which is what Cardin has done very successfully here. Knowing that many of these tunes date back to the time of the first Acadians in America, in 1604, and Cardin has added a line of music to be played, if possible by the Theorbo as, in his words he felt that it seemed appropriate to do this.

This second volume has slightly more difficult instrumental parts, but not too much so, and therefore any decent players will be able to cope with this lovely set of pieces. As in volume one the verses to all the 10 songs are laid out after the music of each song, so that you have to have the same accompaniment for every verse, although as he says in the Preface, there are chord symbols laid above the guitar part, and so possibly the player might want to try a little variation to make the pieces a little different some of the time.

This set of 20 pieces ( including volume 1’s 10 pieces) are lovely folk songs , have some superb melodies , and would make a lovely set for any duo , if they required something a little different to what they are normally used to performing.

Chris Dumigan